With the development of digital technologies, significant advances have been made in broadcasting-communication convergence. For example, a consumption environment for multimedia services such as images, music, and entertainment media has been expanded through broadcasting-communication convergence media such as an internet protocol tele-vision (hereinafter, referred to as ‘IPTV’), a smart TV, and the like. The expansion of the consumption environment for the multimedia services has been made through the progression of a multimedia communication environment from the existing environment. That is, progression from an environment in which a service for one media is provided in one direction to an environment in which a variety of information can be simultaneously consumed due to the development of terminals and communication technologies. Also, the expansion has been through the generalization of media consumption for a consumer to obtain only desired information.
Scene composition information is provided together with a multimedia service. When various multimedia services, including a video service and an audio service, are provided, scene composition information represents spatial information and temporal information. The spatial information represents an area that is occupied by each media included in the multimedia service, and the temporal information represents a time point when each media has to be provided. The scene composition information is presented in the form of a markup language for explanation of an associative relationship between the media. The scene composition information is mainly presented using extensible markup language (XML) in order to express the spatial-temporal information for the various multimedia services. The scene composition information may also be used for multimedia services provided in a hybrid broadcasting environment utilizing the existing broadcasting network and internet network as well as the existing broadcasting environment. Accordingly, demands for scene composition information suitable for a multimedia environment such as the hybrid broadcasting environment are emerging.
In order to provide a multimedia service in a broadcasting environment, information required for identifying whether media data provided by the corresponding multimedia service can be used and for accessing the media data, and information required for accurately analyzing and displaying received media data are needed in an initial stage when the multimedia service is provided. Here, the information required for identifying whether the media data can be used and for accessing the media data, and the information required for accurately analyzing and displaying the received media data correspond to media attribute information.
However, scene composition information provided in the existing multimedia service is implemented in the form in which media attribute information is presented along with spatial-temporal information. Therefore, when the existing scene composition information is used to provide a multimedia service in a broadcasting environment, a process of identifying whether media data can be used and preparing for displaying of the media data may be performed after the scene composition information is completely interpreted. Furthermore, when identical media data is repetitively used for composing the corresponding scene, media attribute information is also repetitively generated in spite of the substantially identical media data.
Moreover, there exists one XML file per scene in the existing scene composition information. Therefore, when the entire scene is changed, a new XML file is used. Accordingly, when media data in the previous scene is continued in the next scene, continuity of the corresponding media data cannot be ensured. Consequently, it may be a problem to apply, in the same way, the existing scene composition information to a broadcasting environment in which media data has to be continuously reproduced.
In addition, as a scene is composed based on media data in the existing scene composition information, when some parts of the scene are independently composed, a complicated presentation is accordingly required. Also, when some parts of the scene are changed, a new XML file is required. However, such a new XML file cannot ensure the continuity of the media data as described above.
The above information is presented as background information only to assist with an understanding of the present disclosure. No determination has been made, and no assertion is made, as to whether any of the above might be applicable as prior art with regard to the present disclosure.